Not only do we here at UPROXX receive unparalleled access to all things Archer thanks to the lovely people at FX and Floyd County Productions being inexplicably keen on us, but I also happen to live and work in Atlanta — where Floyd County bases its operations — which means I can drop by the Archer gang’s new offices and attempt to get the scoop on the upcoming season, in which we’ve been promised a “radical departure.”

In a recent interview, Archer Executive Producer Matt Thompson gave me a glimpse into Season 5 and it’s not something I’m sure I could have properly prepared myself for, not only because the changes that are coming are bold and drastic, but also because our conversation took place in Archer creator Adam Reed’s office and I hadn’t been privy to any of the new key art accompanying the new season. Needless to say Matt did most of the talking, and for good reason: he’s the man with the goods.

Here’s part one of the interview, complete with convenient lead-ins so you’ll know where things are heading (part two now available here). Spoiler alert: Many, many things about Archer Season 5 will be revealed.

On what brought about Season 5’s “Radical Departure”…

There is a big radical departure this season on Archer and that came about frankly because Adam got bored. He is the sole writer of the show and he felt like he was spinning his wheels at some point, which is (Sterling) Archer looking for his father, trying to figure that out, and dealing with his mother. It has kind of almost evolved into spy mission of the week, which is fine. And it’s going well. People liked it. Our ratings have gone up every year. FX is really happy with us. And so you have a show that is successful and/or becoming more successful and we decided to change everything because we were bored and because we just want to make the show that makes us interested and happy in the end.

And when we presented FX with this idea we were like, “I hope you don’t hate us but we want to change everything.” And they were coolly like, “OK great. Sounds awesome.” And we’re like, “OK,” which kind of weirded us out because you know you don’t just like change a show in the middle of it.

On exactly how Season 5 is going to be so different, starting with the premiere…

So what’s happening is you’re going to see in the very first episode of this season that all these years that Malory’s in control of ISIS, and they’ve been doing all these covert operations — kind of like the CIA or whatever — that that was never legal. She was just contracting out this stuff, kind of like Black Water or whatever, and in the first episode of the season the government comes in and shuts them down, throws them all in jail. Like, “What the f*ck you guys doing? You’re not allowed to do this. Stop doing this immediately. You’re assassinating people. You’re all going to jail.”

On how the season drastically changes from there…

Some things happen and they eventually get out of jail but it’s with the understanding that they can never go back to ISIS headquarters. That’s been confiscated. They can never be spies again. So they don’t know, they’re like, “Oh sh*t what are we going to do?” And that’s what happens at the very end of episode one. They realize from their various operations — for whatever reason — they have one ton of cocaine and they decide that they’re going to sell it. They’re just going to sell a ton of cocaine and everybody’s going to become a multi-millionaire and retire. Easy peasy.

On — wait — did you say “sell a ton of cocaine”?

We are now a f*cking drug cartel. And so it goes from there and as you might expect they are not so successful at selling one ton of cocaine. We end up for a large part of the time in Colombia, then a fictional nation, then another fictional nation in Latin America, just trying to sell cocaine to people, whatever. I think it’s a little bit of Breaking Bad and a little bit of us just trying to keep the same relationships that we have, which is still basically the same characters with the same relationships. Except Malory kind of becomes untethered because she’s no longer necessarily theboss. They’re all kind of in this together as drug partners. And then it’s just seeing what happens as they try and sell this literal one ton of cocaine.

On how the cast and crew reacted…

They were like, “WHAT?” They were excited too though. Because they want to do something that’s different. A lot of them have brand new things that are going on for their characters. Their characters have seen a dramatic shift, but they’re still the same characters. Cyril is still Cyril, but Cyril’s no longer necessarily serving as the accountant. Turns out that Cyril’s also a great lawyer. So when we need a lawyer to get us out of some sort of jam, Cyril is serving in that function as a former district attorney, which we found out is part of his background. That we just gloss right the f*ck over.

On what else will be insanely different in Season 5…

Also: Cheryl. Cheryl needed a different motivation than everybody else. Cheryl’s rich as sh*t. She doesn’t need to sell cocaine to become a multi-millionaire. And so we needed different motivation for her and what Adam came up with is he wants to turn her into a country music star.

On Cheryl attempting to — wait — did you say “country music star”?

So she is now “Cherlene.” She’s on the road. She’s doing country songs, and we’re actually putting out a country album with the show this year. Not a joke. A country album. We’re doing “Danger Zone” as a country song. We’re doing “Eastbound & Down,” like from Smokey and the Bandit. There’s a big Smokey and the Bandit episode coming where they have to get Cherlene to the concert in Texas and Archer’s in his f*cking TransAm Blocker car and we’re playing “Eastbound and Down” and Cherlene’s singing. It’s pretty great.

On how the hell you go about making a country album for a character in an animated sitcom…

It’s a real country album. A friend of ours, there’s a guy here in Atlanta named Kevn Kenny who has been around music forever. He’s awesome. He used to be in a band called Drivin’ and Cryin’.

Kevn basically has made this album for us. I don’t know what it’s going to be called but right now it’s just called “Cherlene Sings” or “Cheryl Sings” or something like that. But it’s 12 country songs.

On whether Judy Greer does the singing as Cherlene…

No we hired somebody who sounds like Judy. Judy’s f*cking thrilled with it. She’s loving listening to this girl ’cause she wants to be able to sing. Judy is not a great singer. So she loves that she gets to pretend that she’s a great singer.

On getting away from the office environment…

It’s gone.Episode one, you’ll see what happens to it. By episode two they are no longer in the office. They are living somewhere else and it’s pretty funny. So far it’s been really interesting because it’s been different. It’s the same, like, Archer still beats down Cyril psychologically, and Lana still gets mad at Malory for not doing the right thing or whatever. Those relationships all still exist how they were, but it’s just now all geared towards either A) Selling Coke or B) Making Cheryl Famous.

On what it’s like to start all over with the animation…

Our poor folks. It’s like, “Remember all those drawings that we did of every single thing for all the ISIS locations?” It’s just gone.

Watch any cartoon that’s on TV. I’ll just use The Simpsons, for example. It’s all the same. You’re in their house. You’re in their living room. They’re wearing those same clothes and that’s done that way for a reason. So you don’t end up spending a billion dollars every day. And we’re just dumb, I guess. Because now we’re living in different places, we’re going different places, we’re wearing different clothes. And it’s not the most cost effective thing to do in the world. But it makes it interesting.

Also, I would like one literal ton of cocaine for every person who ass-ily says something dumb about Archer jumping the shark after the first episode premieres. And then I would like each ounce of that cocaine turned into the nickels a more reasonable man would have asked for. Except that a nickel per ounce of cocaine is not necessarily good business, so maybe it would have been wiser to ask for more. But the phrase is typically, “If I had a nickel” so it made sens– um…

I would like a lot of money and cocaine, and people are dumb, are at least some of the points I’m making right now.

I’m sorry, but this sounds dreadful, I’m a huge Arhcer fan and this news is genuinely devastating. I watched Frisky Dingo and thoroughly enjoyed the first season but it fell apart in the second season where they did something similar by radically departing from the previous season, and this is all I can now see for my beloved Archer. I really hope to god I’m wrong, but I just can’t see how this will still be the same show, or barely even the same characters, we’ve all grown to love.

This departure is indicative of a failure by the writers to be consistently creative within the universe they’ve already created. Jump the shark has never been more apt.

A. THE WRITERS = Adam. And I have never seen or read a better writer. When we first started getting more notoriety, we tried to have other people write the show so we could sit on a beach and cash checks. Sadly, it turns out there are not a whole lot of good writers out there. So when you, as a viewer, latch on to a show a “hey, that’s well written” there is usually one person there making that happen. I learned that the hard, financial way. And when you type “failure by the writers” I want to tell you, as a former not so great comedy writer to “fuck the fuck off”. I do it that way because I am not as eloquent as Adam who would probably make some sort of great In the Loop cussing type thing mix with Moby Dick. But that thought still applies.

I could give two shits about what you say about this show, but to ever bring into question the wiring of it seems INSANE. This is 13 episodes of comedy, written every year, by one guy. Back the fuck up.

I’m sure the show will be hilarious as ever, but I’m still wary of the new direction. I just don’t know if I can enjoy such a strange turn. That being said though I’m still very excited for the next season and regardless of what happens this is one of the best series on TV!

Well, I hope I’m wrong, I sincerely do, but I’m finding it really difficult to envisage how this series is going to be a success. I actually think this is the beginning of the end for Archer, unless we wind back up at ISIS in season 6, or at least return to some sort of spying caper. Like I said though, I hope I’m wrong.

It’s also disappointing that you’ve revealed a large chunk of what the new series is about with this interview (and it’s been reported in the wideer, popular press), it feels like you’re concerned about the fans will react so you’re softballing them in, in advance.

I’m still hoping that this is all a bit diversion, a ruse to throw us off the scent, as the idea sounds terrible and the death of Archer as we know. As I mentioned earlier, the second season of Frisky Dingo went to shit, and I reckon this is now what’s going to happen to Archer.

i will admit, i was a little nervous when i heard they were changing everything but this interview has taken those fears out back. i’ll miss ISIS but the best thing about this show are the character relationships and sounds like those will be intact so i’m ready for this ride.

also – adam writes all of these by himself?!? sploosh / holy shit snacks. 2 phrases i should be thanking him for apparently.

Did you catch that Brett Butler (VO actor of Doctor Quinn) was a guard in the space episodes? He got beat up off camera and yelled about “my eye! what did you do to my eye!” HUGE sealab lift / reference.

I am incredibly excited about this. I love Archer to bits, but it was starting to feel a tad repetitive/stale in its fourth season (a little too much reliance on callbacks/running gags for my liking… yes, I know that’s a big part of Adam’s writing style and I normally love the way he does it, but it got a bit much in season 4). I always kind of liked the show the most whenever it did things to shake up the status quo – ie. Cyril’s promotion in the third season, the cancer story arc from season 2… A revamp of this scale is an excellent idea, and fills me with a newfound anticipation for the show.
I do hope, however, that some of the yet-to-be-resolved story arcs carry over to this new version of the show; namely the Barry/Katya stuff, which seemed to really be building up to something great last year, but hasn’t quite paid off yet (I was kinda hoping it was all leading to an epic showdown, especially since the hilarious twist of Ray getting cripped for real was undone so quickly in order to make him part-cyborg… which, again, I was hoping was all part of the master plan). I’m confident that you guys can pull it off, at any rate. More importantly, I’m just stoked to have more episodes of what is easily one of the best shows on tv at the moment. :)
And for all those making negative comments about this – at least wait until you’ve actually seen some of the season to judge it!